When I’m feeling a bit down or my day just isn’t going how I’d like it to, there are a few things that are sure to cheer me up – my dog, Melody, always makes me smile, a nice walk in the sunshine helps, and I bought myself this cute little succulent and planted it in a pot with gold polka dots. Are you humming this to yourself yet? What makes you happy?

With temperatures in the 90s now, summer is undeniably here – and with it being the start of August this weekend, it will soon be over. I’ve managed to pick a whole bowl of ripe tomatoes from our garden with many more ripening on the vine, I’m excited to see our various peppers getting bigger and closer to being ready to pick every day, and our lettuce has reached the stage where it resembles a small tree; although we continually pick leaves off the lettuce plants throughout the summer, as we need them, we never seem to be able to keep up with how fast the plants grow and I always find myself feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of it we end up with in the end – but, it’s so nice to have fresh-from-the-garden lettuce. Neighborhood walks are always enjoyable and I love to see how all the trees, plants, and flowers change throughout the seasons; there are some really stunning flowers out now.

I’m so excited to say that we’ve now completed our basement stair beautification project…at least that’s what I’m going to call it. The red oak wood stain on the treads and Benjamin Moore super white paint really made a big difference; I’d say they have come a long way from this to this and this. I was so happy about it, when we finished painting yesterday, that I kept saying we had “sexy stairs”. Now, hopefully in the next couple months, we can finish having work done to our basement, get all the walls painted white, and say goodbye to the mint chocolate chip green color that’s currently in the space. We managed to make it to the Art Fair last weekend, picked our first four ripe tomatoes from the garden, and I cut some hosta leaves and hydrangea from our yard as well to enjoy inside – enjoying the summer weather and our summer garden/yard! (bowl and vase by Abigail Murray)

We’ve had a fairly rainy, cool summer so far – which is why, when it turned out to be such a beautiful weekend with sunshine and temperatures in the 80s, we took advantage of the sunny weather by enjoying dinner and drinks outside and taking a walk around downtown. Enjoying a sunny, summer patio is a thing of beauty!

It was good that we enjoyed a bit of the outdoors on Friday and Saturday as we spent just about all day Sunday working on our house; Ryan managed to get 4 coats of paint on the underside of the basement stairs, as well as one more coat of clear poly on the treads, so that’s done – now we just need to paint the risers and the stringers and we can check that project off our list.

We were happy to see tomatoes and peppers growing in our garden too; I’m looking forward to enjoying them later in the season when they’re ready to pick – we’ve already been able to use some of our herbs and lettuce from the garden and Melody always enjoys time outside on the patio. It’s hard to believe that we’re already in mid-July and summer will be over before we know it; here’s to many more warm summer days and firefly-lit summer nights.

We enjoyed a fun holiday weekend at home this year – complete with the wonderful company of friends on the 4th, a game of Horse at our neighborhood park, bag toss in the yard, hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill, apple pie, and sparklers!

Melody was ready for the holiday in her red and white striped collar and 4th of July bandana – and I like to think that the hot dog cookie we gave her tasted extra special because she ate it on the 4th. After all the excitement, she was a ready for a nap. I hope you had a fun and relaxing holiday weekend!

On Sunday, rather than taking a bike ride or heading to the park for some paddleboat fun, we decided to start working on our basement stairs; the old and ugly green carpet is gone and the treads are all sanded now, next step will be to stain, seal, and paint…more to come on that.

Although our initial plan to go camping got rained out, we managed to get away and take several days over the weekend to enjoy some of the things that Michigan has to offer which we’d never been to before. Here are just a few to note and I’m hoping we can manage to get away more often and explore new things that aren’t too far from home: Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park – this place was beautiful and if I lived closer to Grand Rapids I could see myself visiting here at least once a week; with the many different gardens and sculptures to view here, you really can make a whole day of it!

And then there was the “beer-cation” portion of our weekend… It’s no secret that Michigan has some pretty amazing craft beers and we spent a little time at some fantastic breweries tasting what they had to offer – I know, it’s a tough job…but somebody’s got to do it! Here are some that we managed to try, in no particular order: Latitude 42 (try the 10 Degrees of Separation), Bell’s (while Two Hearted Ale and Oberon and fairly easy to find and enjoyable, try the Jupiter if you can find it), Gonzo’s BiggDogg (ask about their “black box” offering), Arcadia Ales (try the London Porter and Imperial Stout – fun, laid-back atmosphere and REALLY great food!), Brewery Vivant (try the Rootstock), Founders Brewing Co (try the Devil Dancer), Mitten Brewing Co (try the Dock’s No-No and the Seasonal Fruit Crisp which is basically a dessert pizza). You can view more photos from our weekend getaway here.

Thanks to our dear friends, Mo and Adrian, for the fun package we received in the mail and to Ryan for surprising me with a gorgeous Polaroid camera, it was a pretty fantastic weekend; presents and fresh iced tea and strawberry mint infused sparkling water…oh my!

It was a very productive weekend at our house too – we’re in the process of having some work done in our basement and after Ryan removed the built-in shelves that were previously there, we managed to successfully make a trip to IKEA for some more basement storage (to quote my wonderful neighbor, Emily, “our love survived a trip to IKEA” and if you haven’t seen this you should watch it for a laugh); we also got our washer and dryer back up and running (they had to be moved to make room for the sump pump that was just installed) – it may not seem all that exciting, but sometimes it’s the little things that make a big difference!

In the process of cleaning the house yesterday, Ryan decided it was a good time to go ahead and rip off and throw out all of the really old, really ugly, green carpet that was on our basement stairs; that was the last of the carpet to go and I say good riddance – I’m so excited to see our basement once we get it all done and am looking forward to the possibilities! Our garage door opener just stopped working too, but we’re having it fixed tomorrow. Owning a home can be a lot of work, and it may not be perfect, but it’s ours and we love it!

Rather than showing you the remnants of old dryer tubing, built in shelves, and really old, really ugly, green carpet Ryan just ripped off basement stairs, I’ll leave you with this photo from our neighborhood walk on Sunday morning…

We had quite a bit of rain here on Sunday and some more on Monday (did I mention how happy we’ll be to have a waterproofing system installed in our basement over the summer – ugh?!?), but I think we’ll have a little time to dry out today and hopefully a chance to mow our lawn which is now looking a bit out of control. But the flowers and plants and gardens must be happy to have received all the rain!

We had a really fun time with family and enjoyed having them here with us in Michigan this past week; we managed to squeeze in lots of fun activities, including Traverse City area, Motown Museum, a Tigers game, and horseback riding/mountain biking, just to name a few. We hope you guys will visit us again soon and we miss you already! You can view more photos from our vacation here.